


I Can't Believe It

by Duskknight10



Series: The Reincarnation Chronicles [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Naruto
Genre: Blind Character, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, This isn't really a crossover, and bending, brief mention of Marvel and DC characters, first fic, just has mentions of Avatar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duskknight10/pseuds/Duskknight10
Summary: When she said she wished she could bend like in Avatar: The Last Airbender, this was not what she meant. When she said she wished she could fight like a shinobi from Naruto, this was definitely not what she meant. Well, might as well make the most of it. Save some lives… Mess with a few others… When she said that, THIS IS NOT WHAT SHE MEANT.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi & Original Character(s)
Series: The Reincarnation Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785055
Comments: 22
Kudos: 105
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Amazing OFC fanfiction





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was... unexpected but she's hoping to make the best of the situation. Though that might be more difficult than she thought.

CHAPTER 1 

When she woke up, she couldn’t see anything. She could hear just fine, though. People were talking, she knew, but she couldn’t make out any words. A few minutes later if she focused on what they were saying she could make out a few words.  
“Congra...Asano-san...name?” One voice said.  
The next one was much closer to her and easier to understand, a woman, from the sound of it, said:  
“Her name is Akane.”

\------

She’d admit it took quite a bit of time for her to figure out what happened but there was a solid week of being in denial before she accepted that:  
She was reincarnated,  
she was completely blind.  
and she was reincarnated into the Naruto universe.  
She found this out by trying to get up (and being unable to even lift her head) and listening in on conversations around where she was. Words like “Konoha” and “Hokage” came up and at first, she thought she was just overhearing a conversation between Naruto fans or something, but when the conversations related to “chakra exhaustion” or “injuries obtained on a mission” came up more and more, she was forced to concede that something was up. After what seemed like forever, she was taken to her new home. Akane, as that was now her name, had a sister who was three years older than her named Aoi. From what Akane could tell, Aoi was a happy child, speaking simply with enthusiasm, and she loved her little sister, she hardly left her alone. Something Akane was grateful for, as she was blind. Sure, in her last life her vision sucked, but she wasn’t used to not seeing at all, and it helped that someone was there. Even if that someone wouldn’t shut up about butterflies and flowers. At night she tried to remember what happened before she woke up here. She went over the facts, her name is Charlotte Jones (or it was) and she was a journalist. She was looking into a story that involved some dangerous people. It was a bit fuzzy after that but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. After that, she figured that since she was here, she might as well make a difference. Until she realized she didn’t know when in the timeline she was. Unfortunately, she had no way to know, there was no mention of an Asano clan in canon and having just been born a short while ago, it was unlikely she would meet anyone who could give her a hint as to when she was for quite some time. So until then, she let the days pass her by. Nothing changed for a long time until she was big enough that she could crawl around. Her mother often put her in a playpen, as boring as it was, it helped pass the time. Other times someone would come in and read to her, she still wasn’t sure who it was, but the woman was probably family, with how often she came, and her mother considered her trustworthy enough to leave her alone with Akane so she supposed it didn’t matter. Akane was introduced to her aunt, Midori who was away on a mission at the time she was born. It was at that point when Midori first saw her that they noticed something... off.  
“Murasaki…” Midori said, sounding somewhat hesitant. “ Have you noticed…that Akane isn’t looking at anything?”  
“What do you mean?” Her mother asked, bewildered. “I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”  
“It’s just that she doesn’t seem to see me, or anything for that matter.” Midori continued. “Her eyes don’t seem… focused.”  
“Well, if you really think something’s wrong, I’ll take her to see a doctor tomorrow.”  
Midori let out a breath. “I think that would be for the best.”

\------

“I’m sorry, Asano-san, your daughter is completely blind.”

“W-what? My baby… She’ll never see…?”

“I’m afraid not, my condolences, Asano-san.”

\----

And so Akane was condemned to being coddled… for the foreseeable future, anyway.

\----

By the time she had celebrated her first birthday, she was able to crawl around most of the house. She wasn't able to get very far but at least they weren't smothering her into oblivion. Which would not be appreciated. Akane, now having existed in this world for a year now, is very much empathizing with Toph. If that last year was any indication, the following would be hell, being treated like glass. Then it hit her. Like, really hit her. She could pull a Toph and use her other senses well enough that she could bridge the gap. The only problem was that even without her sight, her hearing wasn’t overly good, above average, certainly. Enough that she could hear things in her neighbour’s houses but not to the extent that would help her navigate her surroundings. Although, since chakra existed in this world… she could always hope that she could eventually develop some technique… or she could hold up hope to develop chakra sensing. Being a one-year-old, there is not much she could do… Except develop her senses of hearing and maybe smell as well. In the meantime though, she had other things to think about. For example, the woman who came in sometimes to read to her? Turns out that was Uchiha Mikoto. Also, apparently she was the same age as Itachi, so she knew where she was in the timeline, at least. Unfortunately, the realization hit her suddenly when Mikoto brought Itachi to meet her shortly after her first birthday. Neither her nor Itachi were capable of speech at the moment so it was mostly just their mother’s speaking for them. It was a good thing though, she thought, she could now make a plan to save the world. She must have made a strange expression, however, because the two parents began chuckling.  
“She seems to not like the look of the blanket.” The woman now known as Mikoto said.  
“Oh…” Her mother stopped chuckling, now sounding sad. “I forgot to tell you… she’s blind.”  
“Oh no…” Mikoto said, sympathetic. “Murasaki, I’m so sorry.”  
Her mother just stayed silent and Akane had a feeling she had a depressed feeling on her face. The visit was cut short because of this and Akane truly dreaded the day when she would have to tell people she was blind and received pity directly. With any luck, she would prove that she could take care of herself in time. Until then, she would plan and train her senses to get them up to par.


	2. Chapter2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane knew she could turn the tables in her favour. If only she could convince others of that.

A little over a year had passed since then and Akane could safely say her hearing had improved immensely. She could now hear the whole street, although she never went beyond her house without someone, excepting the few occasions Mikoto had babysat her. Itachi had started to use words and since he was the only baby she knew in either life, she figured she should follow his example. Akane also started to walk around, if only so she didn’t have to crawl everywhere. Now two-years-old, there still little she could do but one day she noticed she could feel people. Admittedly it took her a moment to realize that it was their chakra she was feeling, a lot sooner than she thought she would gain the ability. It at least gave her something to focus on, with nothing to do but act like a two-year-old. There have been many playdates with Itachi and Akane thinks that their mothers want them to be friends. It probably would have worked if she was actually two-years-old, but she was an adult in a baby’s body, so excuse her if she found it a bit difficult to connect with him. Instead, she found herself thinking about how to stop the first major thing that she could stop. On one hand, she was close to Itachi, so that would put her in an ideal position to stop it. On the other, she found that she was hard-pressed to remember the details. She didn’t blame herself. It had been several years since she had last watched the anime and she had difficulty remembering anything before her 20th birthday in her last life. She supposed she would have to play it by ear and watch for any suspicious behaviour. After all, there was most certainly not any Asano clan in Naruto to her knowledge, so her simply existing changed things that she might not be aware of for years. Akane decided that she would start small, be kind to certain people, be wary of others, focus on getting stronger. With time flying by, Akane finally managed to get her sensing range to a comfortable level, that is, around the block, which was very promising considering she was only almost three. Akane now was speaking in full sentences and preparing to convince her mother to let her be a shinobi. Except no matter what she said, her mother wouldn’t budge. Which was somewhat of a relief. After all, no parent that cared even a little bit was going to let their blind three-year-old daughter take up a dangerous career like that of a shinobi. If Akane hadn’t seen The Last Airbender in her last life and had an obsession with superhero movies where normal people became heroes by training their whole life and using their minds to keep on top, specifically, heroes like Batman and Hawkeye and Black Widow came to mind, back then, they were some of her favourites, now they proved that with hard work she could keep up with the best of them, with chakra in this world, it might even be easier, who knows? Though she wouldn’t know until she tried and her mother was refusing to let her try. She had a way around that though, now, where was Aoi?

\----

Aoi was only three years older than Akane was and had just started the Academy. Her sister only had a week of being an Academy student under her belt and was only doing basic theory work right now, but that was okay. Akane really just needed a more in-depth explanation of how chakra worked so she could get started on learning how to bend. Aoi, still excitable even by six-year-old standards, was entirely willing to dump a week’s worth of information and Akane tried her best to memorize it all. Akane repeated the process of asking about Aoi’s classes for the next two weeks before she deemed that she had enough information added to what she already knew from the anime and supplemented it with other pieces of knowledge from other worlds- if everything worked right with the basics now she might add some abilities seen in other shows and movies. That was still far off, however, and she had still yet to be able to see the way Toph does. So she got to work. She thought about how the tree-climbing exercise worked. If she could send chakra out of her feet and into the earth so it would allow her to see instead of stick to the ground? With quite a bit of trial and error (during which she actually completed the tree-climbing exercise) she finally got it working to the extent of “seeing” the clearing close to her home. Of course, she would keep working on it, the images she got from the technique were still fuzzy and her range was worse than her initial sensing range, but she would get there. In the meantime, she would start herself on water-walking and continue getting secondhand lessons from Aoi.

\---

Three months after Aoi started the Academy she started telling Akane about doing light exercise, that is, running and some situps and pushups. Nothing major, but Aoi was a six, almost seven years old girl and was complaining when telling her sister about this. Akane was hit with two thoughts: that her sister would grow out of complaining about it as she would need the stamina and strength on the battlefield and that she had been focusing entirely on the chakra side of things and neglecting the physical. Akane then began running laps around the clearing and did 10 situps and 5 pushups before and after practicing her techniques. It left her absolutely exhausted and Akane was reminded of the fact that she was only three years old physically. So she decided that she would give herself Sunday off from training. This worked out because Mikoto and Itachi came over mostly on Sundays, so when they came over it was clear it was time to act like she wasn’t already training to be a shinobi. Itachi, even being as young as he was, was observant. When they were left alone to play while the adults were talking, he caught her off guard one afternoon by asking about it. She stayed silent for a moment as she thought about what to say.  
“... Want to see something cool?” Akane asked, finally.  
“Okay.”  
She nodded, “Follow me.” She pulled off her shoes so she could see and led him towards her training clearing. When they got there, she faced Itachi and said:  
“This is where I train.”  
Itachi’s chakra gave off a confused feeling.  
“Training? Why?”  
“I wanted a head start. If I’m going to be a shinobi, I’ll have to work twice as hard as anyone else.”  
“Because you’re blind.”  
“Yes. Now, want to see that cool thing I told you about.”  
She didn’t hear him reply, so she assumed that he nodded. Akane walked up a tree, walked down again, walked across the river in the clearing and stomped her foot, causing a small chunk of earth to fly up into the air- basically everything she could do that she could show him. Itachi stayed silent. His chakra gave a feeling of being impressed before it turned into contemplation.  
“I’ll help you become a shinobi.” He decided, and Akane was glad she seemed to make the right choice, letting him in on her little secret.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earthbending came much easier than expected.

Akane wasn't regretting telling Itachi about her training. For now, at least. She had no idea how this was going to backfire on her later but she was going to take advantage of the fact that someone who could see was actively helping her. Well, Aoi was helping, but she was helping unknowingly, so Akane wouldn't count it. In what ways is Akane taking advantage of Itachi's help? She's having him read to her. Mostly theory on Jutsu which will help her develop her bending, sometimes on other subjects. Akane had always hated being out of the loop, so she had him read her history and news from all over the continent. She could see how he would be considered a genius, his vocabulary was very impressive. Though he still had trouble with a few concepts, he was three, after all. Using the information Itachi got for her was still difficult, but since she got a hold on Toph’s technique, she figured she could start on something else. She wished she could rewatch the episodes where Aang first learned how to earthbend but since that wasn’t possible, she would have to go by memory. The first thing Toph taught Aang was to move a rock, so that was where she would start. She took a deep breath. Focus. An earthbender is unmovable, resilient. Stand your ground, Akane. She stomped her foot and an image of her surroundings came back. Multiple trees, small insects and the river she could hear close-by. Stand your ground. Be an Earthbender. Again, she stomped her foot on the ground, with more force behind it this time. She heard the ground crack as a small boulder flew up and landed in front of her. She smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. Her hand curled up into a fist and flew towards the boulder. She heard a whoosh and felt the boulder move across the clearing. Wow. She could Earthbend. Now she had to find a way to simulate the ‘stop a rock’ exercise. Akane supposed that if she had to she could just get Itachi to throw a bunch of medium size rocks at her. Since she could now do a basic move, she figured she should get back home to avoid more suspicion than necessary. The last time she had returned late she had gotten smothered in worry from her mother, which, fair, she was a blind three-year-old. She could understand that much at least. But in two-three years when she started at the Academy whether her mother liked it or not, it was likely to become insufferable. So for the time being Akane strived to be as independent as possible without being coddled while making as much progress in bending as she could to give her a head start. She didn’t think it was a terrible plan, especially because she knew she could do it. 

\---

Okay, so maybe she should have stayed to practice more instead of coming back. Mostly because she didn’t want to deal with Aoi’s tantrum. She never had any younger siblings or nieces and nephews or children of her own to deal with in her last life, so she had no clue on how to deal with Aoi at that moment. Akane had no desire to find out what the tantrum was about and promptly left Midori to suffer and made her way to her room. Having nothing else to do, she began to meditate. Hopefully, that would be enough to distract from the child screaming on the other side of the wall.

\---

It wasn’t.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years pass and Akane learns water bending.

Aoi kept up the entire house for hours.

Akane had hoped this wouldn't happen but it seemed she hoped in vain. If she had the hearing of a normal person, she would have been able to possibly ignore it, but no- because of her advanced sense of hearing, what would be loud normally, is painfully loud to her. Wonderful. So when she got up the next morning, she was exhausted. At that moment Akane wished that she could drink coffee.

She didn’t even like coffee!

Akane forced herself out of bed and did some stretches hoping that it would help wake her up. It didn’t help much but she wasn’t about to fall asleep standing so she counted that as a victory. She walked out of her room and made her way into the kitchen, where Midori was making breakfast. Midori gave her a good morning as the sound of a plate clinked down in front of her. As she began to eat her practically tasteless breakfast- either Midori was a terrible cook or this is a side effect of last night’s tantrum- Aoi came bounding in and hugged me unexpectedly.

“Happy birthday!”

“Wha- oh. Thanks.”

She had honestly forgotten it was her birthday. August 14th. She was tempted to remark : 

“What? Do I not deserve a good breakfast on my birthday?”

She didn’t of course, she wasn’t that mean. Instead, she went back to her breakfast. Taking her time, since she wouldn’t be able to slip away that day, she thought about her plans.

Aoi was chattering away. Excited for the cake that we would undoubtedly have. Akane thought that if she would be able to convince her mother to let her enroll in the Academy by the time she was six, she should start now since she was four. It would be a difficult task, convincing a protective mother to let her blind daughter enter a potentially life-ending career path.

\---

Almost two years had passed by then and Akane had improved greatly with her earth bending and sensing. She had also started on water bending and was trying to adapt her already present rigid bending style to accommodate the addition of the flowing style of water bending. Admittedly one of the hardest things she had done, but what little she had done with it was very rewarding. 

She had to think it out before she could mix styles. Since the only one in the show that could bend more than one element was the Avatar and she couldn’t remember the specifics of how he fought using more than one element at a time or even if he fused the styles when doing so, she had to work with what she had. Which wasn’t much. 

Regarding the Academy, she had made little progress convincing her mother in the year before she turned five. Afterwards, she decided to show her a bit of what she could do. Nothing to attract unwanted attention, but enough to ensure that her mother knew that she wasn’t completely helpless. Her sensing and “echolocation”. 

Akane knew that she had just over a month now to completely convince her. That was why she was currently in the clearing with her mother, showing her the new and somewhat unbalanced fused bending style including the actual bending. It was still mostly earth bending but she had improved enough on her water bending that she showcased that too.

Of course, she knew that it was a show of prodigious talent, considering that something similar to bending in this world was extremely difficult, something very few had accomplished. That was why Akane was showing her this in the first place. It was admittedly the last resort if nothing else worked since she wanted her abilities to remain a secret between her and Itachi (who she still trained with on occasion, not that anyone else knew that) so she could shock the pants off anyone who doubted her, mostly for amusement, but she could tolerate one more person knowing.

\---

Akane’s mother admitted defeat and allowed her to enroll. 

Step 1: Enroll in the Academy.

Step 2: Graduate.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane knew her mother was mostly indulging her. She knew most people didn’t think she could do it. At this point though, she’s committed, and she’s going to do it whether or not people think she can.

Akane's first day at the Academy was admittedly a bit daunting. She had gotten so used to staying in the confines of her home (or at least nearby, in the clearing) that she had forgotten how to function in public. She tried not to show it though, children could be vicious. When she first walked into the room, she had to pause for a moment to see if she could recognize anyone's chakra. Of course, Itachi was there, but outside of that, she didn't know anyone. She walked up to where Itachi was sitting and sat down. A couple of other girls had noticed that she wasn’t wearing shoes and had started whispering about it. Akane heard a few giggles coming from that direction as well and promptly ignored them. She was not going to start wearing shoes and limit her vision just to fit in. 

Five minutes later, Akane felt what she thought was their instructor just down the hallway. In those five minutes, the classroom went insane. The boys were yelling and the girls were shrieking, Akane was pretty sure food was being flung, and her new classmates had somehow managed to destroy a couple of desks. She would be kind of impressed by how chaotic things had gotten in those few minutes if she wasn’t getting a headache from the noise. Thus came the relief of feeling the instructor nearby from her spot underneath the desk where she had hidden.

When the door opened there was a split second before-

“SIT DOWN!”

She was sure that the desk shook with the volume of it. With that, she climbed back up onto her chair and turned in the general direction of the instructor. His chakra was very clearly angry. Akane honestly couldn’t blame him. Several of her classmates quivered in fear so she assumed that the instructor was staring down the class. 

“This will not happen again, are we clear.” He said.

“Yes.” They responded meekly.

“Yes, sir.” He corrected.

“Yes, sir.”

He presumably glared again as another quiver went through the classroom before he finally introduced himself as Koki-sensei. Koki-sensei told his students that he was going to start us off easy since it was our first day, but because of their misbehaviour, they would be running 15 laps around the Academy. Akane had been training for three years and that included running so 15 laps weren’t exhausting, but they did leave her a bit winded. Soon, she thought, she would have to build up her stamina. 

Koki-sensei brought the students back into the classroom and began teaching. It had been rather boring but that was to be expected since she had been studying the curriculum for years. Akane honestly hoped her bending would compensate for her blindness so she could move ahead a few years.

\---

It had only been four days and Akane already hated her classmates. They had found out she was blind a couple of days prior and they had taken to mocking her. Sure, there were a few who didn't and stayed out of it but being a bystander to bullying was just as bad as the bullying itself. 

She could handle being heckled by a few children, of course. It was just the principle of the thing. If Akane had actually been six, well… she probably wouldn't be at the Academy, but if she was at the Academy and actually six, her self-esteem would be severely hurt.

Regarding her classwork, nothing changed, it was still mind-numbingly easy. Koki-sensei had given Itachi and her progressively harder work, which was still easy, which was to be expected. Akane was pretty sure they would move classes soon and the move couldn’t happen soon enough. While the classwork was easy, the practical work wasn’t much harder.

Akane had altered her training regimen slightly. It had occurred to her that she shouldn’t change her style entirely to accommodate water bending. She focused more on being firm but not overly rigid while practicing with water. She thought that it would make switching to a different element easier while fighting. She hadn’t tested it during a spar but she was relatively confident it would work. Her process of converting the waterbending to something resembling earthbending was simple. Start with the regular flowing style and slowly turned it into the fusion style. Easy, but a bit time-consuming. 

Akane wanted to do the same to her earthbending, so she didn’t have to switch between styles at all, but while her earthbending improved at an impressive rate every time she worked on it, her waterbending took more practice, so she wanted to focus on that for the time being. Also among the changes, she had made her physical training extend to a bit more than what they were doing in class, every minute she wasn’t tired she added another set of exercises to the next day. Because of this, she was rapidly improving her stamina. 

Still, she wanted to work on using her natural senses instead of solely using her echolocation and chakra sense, just in case she ran out or was close to running out. So she dedicated a half-hour each day to practicing fighting without chakra. It didn’t go well at first, but it was slowly getting better. While she was at it, she wanted to improve her range, so she pushed it every time she was able. Mostly when she was at home. That improved as well, and so did her chakra reserves, but she was still nowhere near where she wanted to be. She had to remind herself that she had time to improve, there wasn’t anything all that dangerous on the horizon.

\---

Akane was right when she thought they would move them soon. Unfortunately, they moved them into separate years. Akane would be moving to her sister’s class and Itachi would be moving to the graduating class. Go figure, they wouldn’t move her up further because of her blindness. 

All the more reason to prove them wrong.


End file.
